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Officials

Richard Buery

Deputy Mayor For Strategic Policy Initiatives

Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives Richard Buery leads priority interagency efforts to increase educational opportunity for New Yorkers and uplift working families through City services. He is the architect of Pre-K for All, the Community Schools Initiative and School's Out NYC, New York City's afterschool program for middle school students. He chairs the NYC Children's Cabinet, oversees the Mayor's Young Men's Initiative and has been charged with spearheading the implementation of ThriveNYC to overhaul of the city's mental health system.

Born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn to immigrant parents, Deputy Mayor Buery has dedicated his life to improving outcomes for young people in America's most disadvantaged communities. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, he matriculated at Harvard College at age 16. As a student there, he co-founded the Mission Hill Summer Program, an enrichment program for children in the Mission Hill Housing Development in the Roxbury section of Boston. He went on to establish two other nonprofit organizations, iMentor and Groundwork, Inc.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Buery served as a law clerk to Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was a staff attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, working in the areas of access to justice and campaign finance reform. He taught fifth grade at an orphanage in Bindura, Zimbabwe and was the chief political officer and campaign manager to Kenneth Reeves, the mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has taught at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs and New York Law School, teaching courses in social entrepreneurship and the financial management of nonprofit organizations, and has lectured widely at schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, NYU, and the University of Michigan.

Buery joined the administration from the Children's Aid Society, one of New York City's oldest and largest social service organizations, where he was the youngest president and chief executive officer since the organization was founded in 1863. He led the organization's efforts to end the cycle of poverty by making long-term investments in children from cradle to college graduation, winning numerous federal, state, local and private grants, and launching a variety of successful programs. His achievements include founding the Children's Aid College Prep Charter School, a community school that provides rigorous academic instruction and comprehensive social service to high-needs families in the South Bronx. He has served on many nonprofit boards, including the United Way of New York City, the Community Service Society, the Beginning with Children Foundation, Leadership Prep Charter School, and Achievement First East New York Charter School, and served on the Advisory Board of the New York City Independent Budget Office from 2012 to 2014. He is an Elected Director of the Harvard Alumni Association and a trustee of the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City.

The recipient of many honors, fellowships and awards, Buery was a 1992 Michael Clark Rockefeller Fellow, a 2016 Pahara-Aspen Institute Education Fellow, and a 2012 Fellow of the British American Project. He was named by Ebony Magazine as one of its "30 Leaders of the Future under 30," by Crain's New York Business as one of "40 Leaders of the Future under 40," and has been named to The Grio 100 and The Root 100's lists of African American leaders.

He has received the Mary McLeod Bethune Recognition Award from the National Council of Negro Women; the Extraordinary Black Man Award for Humanitarianism from the United Negro College Fund; the inaugural outstanding alumnus award from the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard University, and the Emerging Leaders award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Buery is an Elected Director of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Buery lives in Brooklyn with his wife Deborah, a law professor, and his two sons.

Pre-K for All

In free, full-day, high-quality pre-K, teachers are sparking wonder and igniting learning in our children. Pre-K for All gives children stronger math and reading skills in elementary school...and a better chance at success in life.

Studies show that early instruction improves performance throughout a child's school experience. In these great programs, children develop and learn how to interact with others, behave in public, share, wait their turns, and listen.

The NYC Community Schools Initiative is a central element of Mayor Bill de Blasio's vision to re-imagine the City's school system. Community Schools are neighborhood hubs where students receive high-quality academic instruction, families can access social services, and communities congregate to share resources and address their common challenges.

NYC Children's Cabinet

The NYC Children's Cabinet is a multi-agency initiative created by Mayor Bill de Blasio to bolster communication and coordination among city agencies and provides a space to identify and analyze individual and common areas of work that impact child safety and well-being. The Cabinet is chaired by Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives Richard Buery, and is comprised of commissioners and directors from 24 City agencies and Mayoral offices.

NYC Young Men's Initiative

Launched in August 2011, the NYC Young Men's Initiative (YMI) is a cross-agency enterprise committed to finding new ways to tackle the crisis affecting young Black and Latino men. The City pledged to invest a combination of public and private funds to support new programs and policies designed to address disparities between young Black and Latino men and their peers across numerous outcomes related to education, health, employment and the criminal justice system. Under the leadership of Mayor de Blasio, the Young Men's Initiative has aligned itself with the White House's "My Brother's Keeper" initiative. The Mayor has tasked YMI with reimagining the size and scale of the initiatives that we coordinate and fund through the initiative.

SONYC: Middle School After School Expansion

COMPASS NYC's middle school model, renamed SONYC (School's Out New York City), serves as a pathway to success for youth in 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Structured like clubs, the model offers young people a choice in how they spend their time; provides rigorous instruction in sports and arts; and requires youth leadership through service. The City itself becomes a classroom through trips and opportunities for instruction beyond a traditional learning setting. Programs are offered three hours each day, five days per week.

ThriveNYC

One in five New Yorkers experience a mental health disorder in a given year. We're launching a comprehensive mental health plan for New York City. We invite you to join the conversation and help us make mental health everyone's business. It's time for New Yorkers to have an open conversation about mental health.